Friday, August 31, 2012

new pot with Ralf Steiner

7 comments:

nadir
said...

Dear Mr. Pall,

it seems you are doing some repotting and styling also in august, when most bonsai enthousiast wouldn't even touch their trees.All your bonsai look very healthy before and after the repotting/styling. Is it due to the extreme health of the trees, the bonsai soil, the kind of tree or what?

Nadir,this is an excellent time to repot spruce and a good time to repot mugos. When you do very little to the root ball you have no problem. Only with P. sylvestris I would be a bit careful. I repot until the middle of September. After this it becomes very dangerous. Most people start then and go in to October. This is very bad. Trees need to grow after repotting for another six weeks to have their roots settled and prepare for winter. These six weeks are crucial.

the best time to work on conifers is from the middle of June to the middle of September. The very best time is August. Forget whatever they told you. I work on all my conifers almost exclusively at that time since thirty years. Wit some success.For the same reason: trees need to recover from styling for at least six weeks. They can only recover when they are active. They have the most excessive energy in August until middle of September.

In Portugal everything is four weeks earlier or later than in my climate. If you absolutely have to yo should repot by end of September. Junipers are better in end of March in your climate though (beginning of May here)

Hi Walter,I find the recommendations in terms of seasons misleading in most cases [ for me at least ]

Could you rephrase what you said on when to do the repotting in terms of candle growth? Is it when the candles are starting to form? after it has been formed? when its starting to elongate? After is has stopped elongating and starting to turn into a new branch&needle?